Franz, Margaret

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Education

2011 North Carolina State University, B.A.
2013 Georgia State University, M.A.
2019  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Ph.D.

View CV

Courses Taught

Intercultural Communication
Mass Media and Society

Career Specialties

Margaret Franz studies legal communication as it relates to race, coloniality and national belonging. Her current project investigates the evolution of citizenship status in the US by analyzing how official methods of interpretation coevolve with and respond to vernacular legal cultures that challenge state authority to define and enforce citizenship status.

Professional and Community Activities

Franz's work on the emotional politics of race and anti-birthright citizenship policies has been published in Social Identities and in the anthology Debates for the Digital Age. A study of the development of birthright citizenship in England was published in Advances in the History of Rhetoric. Right now, Kumarini Silva and Franz are co-editing a collection of essays on the construction of "home" from the perspective of borderlands. Her next project will take a critical intercultural approach to studying the development of "consent" in US law. Studying the intersection of racialization, biomedical theorizations of psychiatric illness and legal norms of competence, the project will ask what kind of “human” subject consent figures and whether it is feasible for ethical engagement in public life.

Community outreach is a central part of Franz's work as a teacher-scholar. She has taught public speaking and interpersonal communication in prisons across North Carolina since 2016 and has also served as a volunteer Spanish-English interpreter and grant writer for refugee and migrant services in central North Carolina since 2015. As a consultant for SpeechWorks UNC, Franz worked with government employees on developing speeches and empowering communication practices. At UT, she is looking forward to continuing this work by developing projects with students that blend research, social justice advocacy and hands-on experience for the professional world.

Honors and Awards

UNC Graduate School Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2018-2019)

Lucia Morgan Scholarship (2017)

Special Initiative Award (2016)

The Ethel Woodruff Draper Research Fellowship (2012-2013)

Outstanding Graduate Student in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (2012)